ACROSS THE NET Melton Table Tennis July 2018 Edition 46 BACK FROM THE BREAK, CLUB CHAMPS, BENDIGO RESULTS, TABLE TENNIS USA, & MUCH MORE In this edition we talk about our upcoming Cub Championships, praise our players at the Bendigo Teams Championships, wrap-up the World Teams Cup and the Japan Open, discuss the next whiz-kid, remind you to get your tickets for the Australian Open, and talk about the pro’s and con’s of table tennis in the USA. WE’RE BACK AND READY TO GO After our enforced mid-year hiatus, the Winter season has resumed. While there were a few rusty players and many creaking joints, the hall was full of people enjoying being back at the table. With only 2 weeks left in the Winter season, we will soon be battling it out in the finals. After that, we have the 3 weeks that everyone looks forward to. 2018 MTTA CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS Our thoughts should now turn to the annual Club Championships coming up in August. Some players choose not to attend these nights, thinking that they’re not good enough to challenge for the honours. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Club Championships are designed to provide a level playing field for all club members. Week 1 on the 2nd of August is the Handicap Championship. Every player has a chance of winning this, regardless of your standing in the club. Each player is given a handicap ranking and matches are played up to 31 points. Some top players may start on 0 or even a negative points score, while the lower rated players may start on up to 25 points. It’s fun to watch the top players sweating in these games, as they can’t afford to make a mistake. In Week 2, on the 9th of August, we run the Doubles Championship and the Shootout. Doubles partnerships are paired on the night, with the lowest ranked player being teamed up with the highest ranked, and so on for other players. This gives everyone an even chance of winning the award. The Shootout is a quick-fire knockout competition of the first player to three points. 2 players go in…. only 1 comes out. Week 3 on the 16th of August is the club Singles Championship. Divided into 3 groups, (A Grade, B Grade and C Grade), it starts as a round-robin contest before progressing to a knockout phase. The Club Championships are open to all MTTA members who have played at least 3 rounds in the grade and have paid all appropriate fees. All players are given the best opportunity to take out one of the 10 awards on offer. Don’t miss this chance to stretch your abilities and have some fun. BENDIGO TEAMS CHAMPIONSHIPS RESULTS The annual Teams Championships for country associations, held in Bendigo over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend has drawn to a close for another year. Our great gang are now known as “The Legends of Country Week”. With teams being entered in 7 divisions, it was the highest representation Melton has had since the championships were moved to Bendigo several years ago. On a daily basis, half of the team travelled up the highway from Melton to Bendigo in a mini-bus driven each day by Matt Camilleri. The other half stayed in Bendigo, sharing accommodation. With clubs coming from all across Victoria, it was also the largest number of players entering the competition overall, with the contests covering Division A, Divisions B1 to B4, Divisions C1 to C4, Divisions D1 to D4, and Divisions E1 to E7. Despite the fierce competition, Melton players were able to come away with 3 Division Championships, as well as 4 Individual awards. Our Division Champions were C1 (Matt Camilleri, Marc Camilleri and Shannon Camilleri), D2 (Chris Addis, Milan Lukavic and Ed Menegol), and E1 (Graham Huggett, Connor Ziday and Matt Magro). The Individual award winners from Melton were Chris Addis and Milan Lukovic who shared the D2 aggregate, both winning 100% of their matches over the event, Connor Ziday who won the E1 aggregate with a 93% winning rate, and Matt Magro who won the E Grade Singles Championship. Those attending were: (back row) Shannon Camilleri, Matt Camilleri, Ed Menegol, Ross Lappin, Graham Huggett, Anna Jurkovic & Dean Camilleri, (centre row) Annemarie Rothwell, Sharyn Ciberlin, Steve Jaunkalns, Steve Batten, Brett Woods, Geof Walker, Milan Lukovic, Marc Camilleri, (front row) Chris Addis, Angela Cricchiola, Sarah Lappin, Lauren Lappin, Christy Koppman, Ross Craddock, Connor Ziday. (Matt Magro was absent from the photo). Our thanks go to Geof Walker for taking on the administration work involved in getting such a great turn-out of Melton players to the event, and our thanks go to all players for giving up their time to represent Melton Table Tennis. For those of us following the championships on social media, many thanks to Graham Huggett for his inspired post-event coverage, and to Annemarie Rothwell for the many photos taking during the weekend. B.O.G.: Addis, Lukovic, Ziday, Magro Reports : Camilleri M. (Sleeping) Injuries : Walker (knee) CHINA WIN WORLD TEAM CUPS WHILE KOREA’S UNITE China have again been victorious in winning both the Swaythling Cup and the Corbillion Cup at the 2018 Men’s and Women’s World Cups. We should be used to hearing that now, because it’s been said many times before. Watching the replay of the Men’s final against Germany was somewhat of a disappointment. With the telecast scheduled for 3 hours, the broadcaster had to show a rather long presentation ceremony with some overly long speeches just trying to fill the time. They still had time to show a 45-minute stand-by program on the history of the Daytona 500 motor race. China had, without much surprise, selected Fan Zhengdong, Ma Long and Xu Xin as their players in the final. Germany were without Dimitrij Ovtcharov who appeared to be injured, and instead selected Timo Boll, Ruwen Filus and Patrick Franziska. All 3 players suffered 3-0 defeats at the hands of the Chinese. The Women’s final between China and Japan was a better spectacle but finished again with Chinese dominance. Mima Ito defeated Lui Shiwen in a 5-game thriller (11-9, 8-11, 5-11, 11-8, 12-10). The following matches were all straight sets victories to the Chinese team, leading them to a 3-1 victory and to the Women’s World Team Championship yet again. In the 1991 World Championships, the then president of the ITTF, Ichiro Ogimura convinced both North and South Korea to compete as a united team for the first time since the Korean war. In 2018, the Women’s teams from North and South Korea decided to do the same thing. Korea Republic and DPR Korea were set to meet at the quarter-finals of the Women’s Championship, but in an amazing turn of events the two sides decided against playing one another and instead it was announced that a Unified Korea team would be formed. They performed valiantly in their 3-0 defeat by Japan but, despite the result, the team secured a bronze medal finish. So, will the main talking point of the 2018 World Teams Cup be the total dominance of China, or the re- unification of Korean table tennis? I’ll let history decide. BOLL BOOK BRINGING BELIEF OR BEMUSEMENT? Some champions can write, and some have a story which can be written for them. Take “My Journey” by Jim Stynes, for example. Others may have been great players, but struggle to have any of their scribblings make sense. I offer “Billy’s Book for Blokes” by Billy Brownless as exhibit A. And it’s not just football players. Many table tennis players have either written books or had books written about them. And now another one is coming onto a bookshelf near you soon. “Table Tennis with Timo Boll”, written by Bernd-Ulrich Gross will be released in July. Gross is a respected coach and author with five previous books on table tennis, including “Table Tennis: Tips from a World Champion”. Table Tennis with Timo Boll will feature descriptions of modern techniques, with Timo’s thoughts on tactics, philosophy, and information on equipment. Designed with both player’s and coaches in mind, the book will feature 850 photo’s and illustrations to emphasis the points being made. Will the thoughts of the 37-year-old former number one be worth the price of the book? We’ll let you know once it’s released. HARIMOTO, ITO VICTORIOUS How do you impress your home crowd in a major Open event? Well, by winning is the obvious answer. Winning as a 14-year-old would certainly be a better way. So how about a 14-year-old winning the Japan Open Men’s Singles by beating two former world champions in two days? Yeah… that’ll work. That’s exactly what wonderkid Tomokazu Harimoto has done. Facing the former world number 1 and current world number 2, Ma Long in the quarter-finals, Harimoto was victorious in a see-sawing 4-2 match (11-8, 11- 9, 11-7, 3-11, 2-11, 11-6). Taking down Lee Sangsu from South Korea in the semi-final, Harimoto was again victorious 4-2. This brought the 14-year-old head to head with former world number one, Zhang Jike in the final. Losing the first 2 games against such an experienced opponent would fray the nerves of many, but Harimoto is made of sterner stuff.